I can’t get over the fact that our ‘babies’ are now ready to have their second vaccinations! They will be having their vaccinations on Friday afternoon, which means that I will hopefully be able to have them in for their neutering operations the week after that. Alek and Lainni are still smaller than Soolay, but both are making good gains every day, and even Alek is now over 750g. Admittedly, that’s not a patch on Soolay’s 1.25kg, but at least he’s not actually half the size of his brother anymore!
All three kittens have good appetites, and constantly have nice full tummies now, which is great to see. Whenever I take new food into their rooms they all run around my feet squealing as if they haven’t been fed for a year, and as soon as the food is put down they’ll have their little faces stuffed into it. I’ll have to clear away the previous batch of food to make room for the new stuff, but they always prefer whatever new food you’re putting down to whatever it is that they’ve got at the moment!
I thought we ought to put up another set of individual photos, but if I thought taking them was hard before, it was nothing on now. The only way to get them to look where you want them to is to wave a feather stick at them, but that results in them doing ‘owl eyes’. In the end we decided just to settle for the ridiculous round-eyed look but at least having the kittens looking at the camera!
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The three all look quite different (within the bounds of a pedigree mating) – I think Lainni is the prettiest, Alek is the cutest and Soolay is really becoming quite handsome. He’s a big strapping boy, with a lovely rich colour, and a good soft coat. I am quite tempted to enter him in a show before he leaves us, just to hear what the judges think. He does have a bit of a habit of rounding his eyes (although they are gorgeous when he’s not doing that), and I suspect that his limbs will be a bit chunky to be ideal for the breed, but I still think he’s a very handsome boy!
We’ve had the results of the kitten’s faecal panel back, and it turns out that their illness has essentially been caused by food poisoning. They tested positive for exposure to clostridium perfringens, which is the third most common cause of food poisoning in humans. It is something that occurs naturally in the guts of all vertebrates, but the kittens guts managed to get out of balance and the bacteria multiplied more than usual, causing them to become ill. Perhaps next time we ought to try giving them probiotics??
The Girls
Katie is now completely dry of milk, but Dàrna’s came in on Sunday. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was the kittens who discovered this, whilst cuddling up with her, so she had to be removed from them immediately. As it happens, our intention was always to move her up to the kittening room that day, but we were going to move her in the evening. Once the kittens had found the milk, however, I just scooped her up and took her straight up there, and she is now in there with Katie for company.
Although Dàrna’s due date is technically Thursday, we don’t think she’s actually going to go that long. She is huge, and the kittens are tightly packed, but in the past couple of days they have all started wriggling around to get in the right orientation for birthing. Dàrna’s ‘happy hormones’ also kicked in on Sunday, and she has been ridiculously purry since. She’s also become clingy, though, so if we’re not in the room then Katie has to be in there to keep her company. We would have liked to have kept the room with just Dàrna to be sure of minimising any infections, but she’s just not happy by herself, and we can’t be with her all the time, so limiting her company to just us and Katie will have to do.
Kia is still convinced that Katie’s kittens actually belong to her. Clearly her hormonal brain hasn’t computed the impossibility of a trio of 10-week-old kittens having been produced when she miscarried, because she chirrups at them as a Mother does to her babies. She is really good with them, playing very gently with Lainni and Alek, and then rolling around the floor with Soolay. She also makes sure that they are nicely ‘polished’ whenever she gets the chance. Katie would still allow her kittens to suckle if they were given access to her, so they are shut away whenever she is about and vice versa.
Wyvern Cat Club Show
We went down to Worcester for the Wyvern show on Saturday, staying over on the Friday night, in the same B&B as last year. Once again we had a lovely time, and Elisabeth was with us this time, so we all went out for a delicious meal together the night before. I can see this becoming a bit of an annual event!
We had taken Monty, Breckin and Xaria, all of whom took Best of Breed. Monty lost out in the Grand to two more mature cats, so we can’t complain about that. I think Breckin was robbed in her Grand class, but you pay your money and you take your chance, so what can we do. Xaria took another Reserve Imperial (her third to the same cat, but at least the other girl is made up now, so won’t be against her again – yay!), but went on to take Best Foreign Neuter, which was a great result.
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The real excitement of the day, though, was Elisabeth’s little Yzzy (Xaria’s niece) winning her 3rd CC, making her a Champion, and Elisabeth’s 15th titled cat. Elisabeth also had Tasha (Xaria’s mum) and Ziva (Yzzy’s daughter, so Xaria’s great-niece), who each won their respective Best of Breed awards. That meant that on top of her excellent result with Yzzy, it was a Dushenka who took all three Russian Best of Breeds – Tasha for Adult, Yzzy for Kitten and Xaria for Neuter. Add to that Xaria’s Best of Variety win, and Elisabeth’s prefix really had a rather good day!